Month: January 2021

Titans began with one Robin and quickly added another, and the second season ended with none. Titans Season 3 is set to remedy that as a third Robin, Tim Drake, joins the cast.

Actor Jay Lycurgo will recur during third season of Titans as Tim Drake, a third Robin who followed in the footsteps of Dick Grayson and Jason Todd. According to Variety, HBO describes Drake as a “streetwise kid who’s managed to grow up on the toughest streets without losing his indelible belief in heroism.” He has an easy-going demeanor and a near-genius mind that allows him to excel as a detective.

This is interesting as it both seems to diverge from the comic book version of Drake while feeling pretty similar to Jason Todd as portrayed in Titans Season 2 by Curran Walters. While Dick Grayson (Brenton Thwaites) was the first Robin and has been working through the trauma that came with that, Todd stepped into the role with a chip on his shoulder. As he hid out with Deathstroke’s daughter Rose, Todd tells her of his history of being abused and having to fend for himself while committing petty crimes before Bruce Wayne, adopter of child soldiers, took him in.

The Tim Drake of the comics, meanwhile, grew up wealthy, with often absent archaeologist parents, priming him to be both self-reliant and detail-oriented. How the show will resolve the conflict between the similarities and differences remains to be seen.

Also up in the air is exactly where Tim Drake fits into Batman’s chronology. In Titans, Bruce Wayne is played by 59-year-old Iain Glen, who gives the character a fatherly feel but puts him in his later years as a vigilante. He sent Jason Todd to hang out with the Titans to cool off his rebellious attitude, though Dick Grayson’s habitual lying ended up having the opposite effect, with Todd set to become the vengeful, gun-toting Red Hood in the third season. It doesn’t seem like Drake would have had time to even settle in as Robin #3 before appearing on the show.

Back to the actor, Jay Lycurgo. Interestingly, his time as Tim Drake won’t be his first time witnessing Batman in action. The actor also appears in the trailer for the upcoming Batman movie directed by Matt Reeves and starring Robert Pattinson. We’re willing to bet he’s not playing Tim Drake in that movie, but the DC multiverse makes just about anything possible. The actor also appeared in HBO’s I May Destroy You, making this his third project with WarnerMedia.

Titans Season 3 does not yet have a release date, but it does have a much bigger cast. In addition to Curran’s heel turn toward the Red Hood, the series will include Barbara Gordon as former Batgirl and current Gotham City Police Commissioner and Dr. Jonathan Crane, also known as Scarecrow.

The Offer is an upcoming ten-episode series that takes a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the iconic film The Godfather. Now, the Paramount+ series has lost its star. Armie Hammer, who had previously signed on to play Al Ruddy, the producer of the film, has exited the project.

The news comes from Variety as Hammer is alleged to have sent graphic messages to women online, some of which alluded to fantasies about abuse and cannibalism. None of the messages are verified to have been sent by Hammer and, in a statement via Variety, he said, “I’m not responding to these bulls*** claims but in light of the vicious and spurious online attacks against me, I cannot in good conscience now leave my children for 4 months to shoot a film in the Dominican Republic. Lionsgate is supporting me in this and I’m grateful to them for that.”

The movie filming in the Dominican Republic is Shotgun Wedding, which he was set to star in alongside Jennifer Lopez. Josh Duhamel (Transformers) is believed to be replacing him in the role.

A replacement has not been found for The Offer. The series was first announced in late 2020 as the rebranding of CBS All Access into Paramount+ was revealed. Among the other shows in the works for the streaming service is a reboot of the VH1 documentary series Behind the Music. No other information about The Offer, including a potential cast or release date, has been announced.

Image credit: Getty Images/Todd Williamson/E! Entertainment/Contributor

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Note: This post contains some light spoilers for Hitman 3, so read on at your own risk.

Thanks to early looks at Hitman 3, we knew its second mission included a full-on murder mystery that takes place in an English manor, nestled right in the middle of your own intentions to commit a murder. What we didn’t know was just how intricate that mystery would be–or how much detail it would include about the family at the center of it all.

Though the last three Hitman games tell a tale of intrigue of their own, that story is mostly relegated to moments in between missions, providing loose reasoning to venture to each of its massive, dense locations. At Thornbridge Manor in Hitman 3, you’re looking to eliminate matriarch Alexa Carlisle because she’s a part of the Illuminati-like organization known as Providence. That’s enough to get you through the mansion’s door, but the story within it is a self-contained glimpse at Alexa and her family, and it mostly exists just to help you learn when you can get a chance to take Alexa out without being seen.

But that summary of what Hitman 3 and its predecessors are like, from a writing standpoint, is largely incomplete. A striking thing about the last three Hitman games that doesn’t get discussed much is how much deep, interesting, often hilarious dialogue there is within its missions. Most of it serves a utilitarian function–almost everything you learn about where your assassination targets will be or how you’ll be able to take them down comes to you from overhearing conversations. But what’s often overlooked is how fun that dialogue can be.

Thornbridge Manor is a great example of Hitman’s often stellar writing. Solving the mystery requires you to investigate the various members of the Carlisle family to figure out who killed Zachary, Alexa’s brother. Listening in on the members of the family gives you a lot of insight into their personalities and individual stories, though–much more than you actually need to know to accomplish your goals. Spend a little time wandering Thornbridge and you’ll discover all sorts of things about the Carlisle family that helps flesh out a picture of this group of people, even as they exist purely to facilitate clever assassination opportunities.

Alexa has three adult children: Gregory, Edward, and Rebecca. You learn quickly that Alexa has been a fairly awful mother to her children–she’s incredibly critical and cold, and each of the kids has reacted in their own way to the lack of a loving parent in their lives. Gregory is sarcastic and rude, always needling everyone around him (and his wife is hated by the staff because she’s already trying to take over Thornbridge following the murder). The bookish Edward, a professor, went the opposite way, meek and anxious about how his mother will react to everything he does. Despite being a talented piano player, a published author, and a successful professor, he feels like a failure, and his neediness ruined his marriage–so much so that his ex-wife has a restraining order against him because he just won’t leave her alone. Rebecca took over the Carlisle media empire, and she responded to her mother by developing a workaholic drive. In the wake of the murder (and the fact that Alexa faked her death to dodge the assassination you’re about to commit), Rebecca is already suspicious of what’s going on with her mother and is chasing up leads like a dogged journalist.

You learn almost all of this (and a lot more about Alexa, Zachary, and their family history that I won’t spoil) largely from overhearing conversations. The knowledge you gain in Thornbridge and how you share it makes for some pretty drastic changes to the outcome of the mission, providing you opportunities to assassinate your target–or create alternative outcomes that don’t require you to pull a metaphorical trigger. What you learn about each family member doesn’t really matter outside of the mission, and yet it’s enough to paint them all as three-dimensional characters and more than just NPCs walking around on loops so you can get them out of sight and knock them out.

Hitman 3, in particular, does a great job with its ambient dialogue and the various conversations you’ll overhear, but there are plenty of gems in the last two games, as well. These games are often discussed for their comedy, but that comedy is almost always about the goofy things you can do in the game–how you can ragdoll enemies off the sides of buildings with exploding rubber duckies or trick every guard in a building into running to the same puddle with a lamp cord lying in it, falling in an ever-growing heap of electrocuted henchmen. But there’s a huge amount of hilarious stuff in Hitman that comes through purely in the writing, in the way conversations are used to give you information.

In 2016’s Hitman, you head to an exclusive hospital and spa in Hokkaido, Japan, to hunt two super-rich targets. One of those targets has booked the on-site yoga instructor for the entire day, and you can impersonate him as a chance to get one-on-one with your prey. Sneak up on the instructor, and you hear him on the phone, talking about an injury he’s suffered.

“Terry, it’s John,” the instructor says as you listen. “I tried that pose we talked about, Destroyer of the Universe? I guess I pulled something back there. So listen, I need you to call the office. Say you’re my brother, make up some family emergency that I have to fly home for right now. Listen, I know you’re only twelve, but you can do this. No, don’t go get Mom, Terry. Terry–Terry!”

Yes, the yoga instructor’s conversation is all about letting you know that he’s injured and can’t head to his appointment, leaving you the opportunity to take his place. But developer IO Interactive finds ways to make sitting and listening to a guy say he pulled a muscle in his butt and can’t work today not just interesting, but hilarious. And it does this all the time, coming up with compelling reasons for characters to give away the combinations of safes, to talk about where important keys are stashed, or to explain why they’re about to wander into a secluded area with their back turned to the only path along which someone with malicious intent might sneak up on them.

Some of the best dialogue is deployed in fleshing out the characters you ultimately murder. Every Hitman mission has targets wandering around waiting for you to kill them, but even the formula of “extremely rich person walking from place to place with a lot of bodyguards on-hand” changes each time you face it if you stick around to watch or listen in on targets. In Hitman 3, for instance, you can expose one such rich person, a lawyer, to lethal consequences by informing his wife about how he completely tanked her career in order to win a court case. Listening to conversations between the couple, and other people at the party, fill in the gaps about just how devoted the couple is to one another–so when you finally slip the wife some information about how her husband betrayed her, you understand why she would react by shoving him off a balcony in a fit of rage.

There are plenty of other examples, like the father and daughter you can reunite (before you kill the father) in Hitman 3’s first mission, or the rival researchers you can put at odds to give you a chance at both of them in its fourth level. Throughout the game and both the 2016 and 2018 games that came before it, there’s dialogue that’s funny, poignant, and tragic. There are characters that you ultimately assassinate who largely deserve it–and who are also nuanced. A huge part of what makes the Hitman games work is that they’re so full of moving parts, carefully crafted intricacies, and smart writing to add realism, heart, and humor to it all. Hitman 3 and its predecessors carry a hundred tiny stories scattered throughout their levels, and they’re absolutely worth hearing.

We’ve got a whole lot more Hitman 3 coverage, so be sure to check out our Hitman 3 review, a rundown of why you should check out Hitman 3’s Escalation missions, and our Hitman 3 hub for guides and walkthroughs.

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Ethan Hawke is set to reunite with Sinister director Scott Derrickson for the new horror movie The Black Phone. The film is an adaptation of the Joe Hill story of the same title.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Hawke will take on a villainous role as a man who kidnaps and imprisons a kid in a soundproof basement. Mason Thames (For All Mankind) plays the boy, while Jeremy Davis (Saving Private Ryan) plays his dad. The phone of the title is an old disconnected telephone in the room that rings with the voices of the dead at night.

The Black Phone is produced by Blumhouse Films, who also produced Sinister, as well as movies such as Get Out, The Purge, and the 2018 Halloween reboot. The film is written by Derrickson and his regular co-writer C. Robert Cargill. The pair also collaborated on Derrickson’s Marvel hit Doctor Strange. Hawke has previously appeared in several Blumhouse movies, including The Purge and the western In a Valley of Violence.

The Black Phone starts production next month, but doesn’t yet have a release date. Joe Hill’s original story appeared in his 2005 short story collection 20th Century Ghosts.

Hawke was also recently cast in the upcoming Marvel Disney+ series Moon Knight. He’s set to play another bad guy role, although specific details of his characters are yet to be announced. The show will star Oscar Isaac in the title role, a vigilante who suffers from multiple personalities.

As for Blumhouse, two of its biggest franchises have new movies due this year. The Forever Purge is set for release in July, while Halloween Kills arrives in October.

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Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will conduct a livestream on Twitch where she will discuss the latest news about GameStop’s stock price and marketplace volatility in general. The stream is set for 5:30 PM PT / 8:30 PM ET, and you can watch it through the embed below once it begins.

AOC announced the stream on Twitter. She will be joined by “a guest or two,” but she didn’t say who her guests may be. Plans for livestream emerged following her comments against the stock trading site Robinhood, which recently halted trading for GameStop, AMC, and other stocks that are getting short-squeezed. She said Robinhood’s decision is “unacceptable.”

“We now need to know more about Robinhood’s decision to block retail investors from purchasing stock while hedge funds are freely able to trade the stock as they see fit,” she said. “As a member of the Financial Services Committee, I’d support a hearing if necessary.”

AOC is not the first politician to weigh in on the stock market upheaval this week. President Joe Biden’s administration is watching the situation, while US Senator Elizabeth Warren has also weighed in with a comment of her own.

She urged the SEC and other financial regulators to step in. She also delivered sharp criticism of private equity firms and investors for treating stock as a playground for gambling.

“With stocks soaring while millions are out of work and struggling to pay bills, it’s not news that the stock market doesn’t reflect our actual economy. For years, the same hedge funds, private equity firms, and wealthy investors dismayed by the GameStop trades have treated the stock market like their own personal casino while everyone else pays the price. It’s long past time for the SEC and other financial regulators to wake up and do their jobs–and with a new administration and Democrats running Congress, I intend to make sure they do.”

GameStop’s stock price has been on a rollercoaster ride in recent days, due in part to the WallStreetBets subreddit taking on hedge funds and short-sellers who bet against the retailer. GameStop’s stock price dropped after Robinhood and others halted trading, but it has rebounded since. This situation is not going to be finished anytime soon, so keep checking back with GameSpot for the latest from AOC’s livestream and other events.

One of the challenges you’ll be asked to complete in Fortnite this week is to emote at stone statues. There is more than one place you can complete this quest–simply click on the challenge in your quest log from the lobby and it will highlight where you need to go. We’ve outlined two stone statue locations in our guide below.

Fortnite’s Season 5, Week 9 challenges are now live and can be completed for XP.

Stone statue location guide

Below you’ll find both stone statue locations marked on the map:

You can find stone statues at the entrance to Colossal Coliseum and Coral Castle. If you’re doing this mission solo, we’d recommend going to whichever destination the battle bus will fly by last, to minimize the amount of players heading in the same direction. Either way, both spots are likely to attract many players, so be careful.

To emote at stone statues near Colossal Coliseum, just head to the entrance gates. You’ll see these statues on either side of the gate. Just perform an emote near these statues to complete the challenge.

The other spot you can complete this challenge is near Coral Castle, at the row of stone statues leading up to the entrance. Same thing here–just perform an emote near the statues to complete your objective.

Other Fortnite guides claim you can complete this challenge near the circle of stone statues south of Holly Hedges, but GameSpot was not able to get this specific location to work. Did this location work for you? Did you find other locations where you can complete this challenge? Let us know in the comments!

Challenge reward

You will receive 20,000 XP upon completing this challenge.

For the rest of this week’s Fortnite challenges, check out where to find the hidden bunker, where to find the crashed plane’s black box, and where to shakedown an IO Guard.

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